


Beyond the Curve of the World

by Fontainebleau



Category: Captain America (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Planet Hulk AU, the happy ending we deserve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:34:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23820154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fontainebleau/pseuds/Fontainebleau
Summary: Planet Hulkas it might have been, from a tyrannosaurid perspective.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Devil Dinosaur & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 11
Kudos: 15
Collections: Stucky Remix 2020





	Beyond the Curve of the World

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Planet Hulk AU](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/611149) by hopeless-geek. 



> This is remix of hopeless-geek's amazing _Planet Hulk_ art, embedded below; it was wonderful to work on, and I hope the fic can live up to it!
> 
> Thanks to eachpeachpearplum for expert betaing!

This is not the world where I was hatched. That was _before_. _Before_ was the kicking press of nestmates and the rumbling of our broodmother in the warm-and-dark of the night; it was darting quick-and-small from the swoop of the day-hunters above and chasing with the great waterflies flitting over the slow green river; it was stalking the swift runners through the dancing shadows at noon, feasting with my nestmates on the steaming kill, and growing, always growing, claw and muscle, teeth and flexing tail. I hunted, I grew and I learned the truth of my world: I was a king, the strongest and most terrible, and all others were prey to me.

That was my world, where I and my kind ruled: then I was changed and a new life began, the life of the Killiseum. The Killiseum is hard stone and cold metal; its scent is old blood and rank fear, its sound the frenzy of the stamping crowd, the roar of triumph and the death-cry of defeat. In the Killiseum we were kings also, the Captain and the Soldier and I. Our enemies would come against us with bite of iron or weight of stone, with raking claw or coiling whip: all were different, but their end was the same. In the hot-and-red of battle rage we fought, we crushed, we killed and we shared the joy of triumph as the crowd screamed our names and the foe lay broken at our feet. Together we fought and we won, always won.

The Captain is my warbonded, my other self. I fight for him, protect him, remain with him, a promise to last to the end of both our days. And at his side, the Soldier, his chosen huntmate: there can be no one without the other. The Captain and the Soldier are not as I: they are quick-and-hot like the tiny burrowers, restless and inquisitive with their rapid ticking hearts. My warbonded and his huntmate are small and weak, but they are clever and they are brave. They need not be strong: there is none so vast and strong as I. Our enemies may come many and fierce, but the Captain shows me their weakness, the Soldier leads them to my strike; fast and sure they slash and distract, until I can close my jaws and shake my neck to send our rivals shrieking in the dust.

Together we ruled the Killiseum and together we nested, though our nest was not the soft-and-safe of leaf litter and shading ferns: it was bare and cold, barred metal and stone. There was no prey, only carrion; no hunt, only a restless waiting; and under all the chill scent of despair. The Captain scented it too, though he did not know: he and the Soldier, quick-and-restless always, would pace and speak while I lay torpid, telling of their _before_ , their other life, telling of _hope_ and _freedom_ , but for us there was only the long sunless time until we would hear the crowd’s shout once more and come alive to our brief ecstasy of rage and triumph.

Then the Soldier was lost to us, his place at the Captain’s side empty, and we were diminished. We fought still and we won, the arena trembling at our tread, but it was not as it had been. Alone, the Captain felt no glory, no bloodlust; the spirit drained from him as when the body grows old and slow and must lie down and turn to bone. The Soldier gave him purpose, made him brave: without him he was less, and I too was less, we who are one.

So we left the Killiseum to follow the Soldier’s trail. This world is great, far greater than I had seen, and our way was long and hard. Every creature was an enemy to us, great hulks of sea and forest, foes as great as I, and swarming nests of stinging mud-dwellers too many to battle. I carried the Captain on my back across barren wastes of poison dust and through shattered dry mountains; we took wounds, thirsted and hungered, and though at night as the Captain slept I would hum the song of the broodmother to rumble through his bones as comfort, still he would shift in restless dreams and wake in pain at cold dawn.

But the huntbond endures: like the scent of clear water on the wind the Captain caught the sense of his mate, far and faint; he heard his cry like the call of the hatchling within the egg, and we followed, to the very nest of the enemy. There in its deepest cavern we found him, the Captain with his axe and I, and together we laid his captors low, breaking through to him as through a shell too hard and thick for an infant’s tooth. So the Soldier spilled out into the light once more and he and the Captain were one again.

\--

My warbonded and his mate are small and this desert night is full of dangers; I settle my bulk around them like a brood of young and they sleep against my flank like hatchlings. Where will we go, the three of us? There was a _before_ , and now there will be an _after_.

All I have known of this world is the hot sand and the battle roar, and then this place of red dust and poison water, of dry caverns and walls of bone. This is no land to live in, and now we are three again we will not stay, nor will we retrace our way to the Killiseum; the crowd must shout our names in vain.

This world is great, and if we go far enough we will find another land. I see in my mind how it will be – the great trees towering green in rich heavy air, the browsing herds across the valley and the wide lazy river soft with mud. It calls to me, the wet-and-green where prey run thick beneath the branches, where the water drips in cool beads from my snout as I drink, where the bright waterflies hover in the sun at noon.

We will go on, beyond the curve of the world, to find its green heart, the broad plains and shading trees, the spilling waterfall and the fanning fronds: there will be toothed dayfliers, egg-thieves, crested grazers in crowding herds, and perhaps too there will be others of my kind, striding rulers of the land. Could there be for me the domed nest, the eggs guarded in warm sand, the chirping hatchlings to take tender in my jaws? Will I guard them, hunt for them, tearing the belly of the steaming kill to let them feed, rich-and-warm? Will I watch as they grow and see them learn their truth, that they are greatest, strongest, fearless?

The Captain and the Soldier lie curled in my shelter, sharing their warmth, speaking together low. Their words are _freedom_ , _hope_ , _home_ , and they are words for all of us. We will seek. We will find.

We will go home.


End file.
